User blog:Pinkguy the b0ss/Sonic the Hedgehog Review
What's up my Shreks, it's me. Recently, I purchased a Sega Genesis with 15 games, including Sonic 1 and 2, Aladdin, Altered Beast, and all 3 Mortal Kombat games, for about $60. I wanted to get a Genesis because I was interested in the classic Sonic games in particular, since everyone online practially worships them as perfect games, or at least better than the Mario or Donkey Kong Country games. I wanted to see why everyone considers them as such, and if I agree that they're as great as everyone says. I started off by playing the original 1991 Sonic the Hedgehog since I thought it would be a good place to start, and beat it within a few days of getting it, which is more than I can say for most games I pick up. So, today, I'll be sharing my thoughts on Sonic the Hedgehog. Let's start off with some history. In the late 1980s, Sega released their new 16-bit Mega Drive console in Japan. It was unfortunately not very successful. They then released the Mega Drive in North America, rebranded as the Sega Genesis, planting the seed for something huge. At the time, the 8-bit Nintendo Entertainment System was extremely successful in the U.S., but Sega's own 8-bit console, the Master System, failed to make a splash in the market. When they brought the Genesis overseas, it also initially failed to take significant market share from the NES, despite being technically superior. Sega soon realized that the issue was characters. Nintendo had Samus, Link, and of course, their mascot Mario. Sega had.... a forgettable elf called Alex Kidd. They knew they had to come up with a recognizable character in order to compete with Nintendo. Sega of Japan executives started a company-wide search for ideas. They had many suggestions, including a rabbit and a moustached man who eventually became the main villain Dr. Robotnik. Eventually, the company found an employee, Naoto Ohshima, who had a drawing of a hedgehog called "Mr. Needlemouse." Sega liked it, and with a few changes and introduction of speed as a focus (due to main programmer Yuji Naka's desire for a platformer faster than one of his favorites, Super Mario Bros.), Sonic the Hedgehog was born. The game ended up selling extremely well, and more than likely was responsible for the Genesis overtaking the NES, and even Nintendo's new SNES console initially in terms of sales. This established Sega as a worthy competitor to Nintendo, and set the stage for one of the most popular game series of all time. So, what do I think about the 1991 game that started it all, Sonic the Hedgehog? Is it as good as everyone says, or is it a bad start to one of the most popular game series? Let's find out. Story The game's storyline is a bit more complicated than Mario, but not by much. Sonic and his animal friends live on the peaceful South Island. One day, Dr. Robotnik attacks and converts the animals into robotic Badniks in order to take over the island. Sonic sets out to save his friends and stop Robotnik in his tracks. I think it's a decent story and adequately provides an explanation for what's happening. Gameplay The game is a 2D platformer. One difference, however, is that Sonic emphasizes speed more so than other platformers, though there is a clear segregation between speed and platforming. Some zones, like Green Hill or Starlight, emphasize speed, while others, like Marble or Labyrinth, are slower-paced and more focused on traditional platforming and puzzle solving. Overall, I think it's handled pretty well, but there are some hiccups in the level design (more on that later). The game's controls are fantastic, partly due to their simplicity. The D-pad moves Sonic, all three buttons jump, and ducking while moving makes Sonic do a spin attack. They feel great as well due to the game's excellent physics. These controls, combined with Sonic's speed, also make the game paced well - fast enough to stay entertaining throughout, while not being so fast that it's barely playable. The game spans over six zones, each containing three acts, making for a total of 18 levels. For a 16-bit platformer, Sonic the Hedgehog is fairly lean in terms of length. That's not necessarily a bad thing though, seeing how these levels are longer and more in-depth than other platformers of the time. This compensates fairly well for the short length. Something that sets Sonic apart from other platformers of the time is that it features several branching paths in each level that eventually converge to the end. Everyone seems to think this is inherently better than the relatively linear level design of Mario or DKC, but.... I don't see exactly what these people see. I do appreciate the concept of multiple paths and when they can be done well, but when it gets taken too far and the levels feel like giant mazes with no sense of direction, that's where I start to dislike it. Thankfully, Sonic 1 does a good job of keeping things straightforward enough to not become confusing, with the paths clearly diverging and the levels feeling like a combination of multiple linear stages on top of each other. With all of that out of the way, let's talk about the difficulty, and..... oh boy. Difficulty Now, before I start off, I want to say that this game is beatable. With enough experience, you'll beat this game eventually. I mean, hell, I managed to do it after only playing the game three times, and without the hidden level select code. But, unfortunately, I do have a few complaints. First, is that there's a mild case of screen crunch. This can lead you to crash into enemies more often than may be preferred, and can make it hard to see where you're going at times. This introduces a bit of trial and error, and if you could only get hit once before dying, it would make the game almost unplayable. Thankfully, though, the ring and powerup systems are here to save the day. If Sonic has at least one ring, he can afford to take a hit from enemies, which scatters his rings. There's also powerups like the shield and invincibility which make dealing with enemies even easier. Most of your deaths in this game will not be from enemies or stage hazards, and this makes the visibility problem nothing more than an annoyance when dealing with enemies. However, the rings or powerups won't save you from the instant-kill hazards that are common in this game, such as crush deaths or bottomless pits. These can be hard to predict due to the visibility as well. When one of these occurs, it is often pretty annoying, because of the next issue. This game, for whatever reason, sticks to the dated system of limited continues. Also, the only way to score a continue is to collect 50 rings in an annoying special stage. This means that if you die too many times, you're going back to the title screen to play the game from the start again. This, combined with the instant kills and surprise hazards, makes this game pretty annoying to beat on your first time through. This extends somewhat to the level design, which is good but isn't as great as future games, including Sonic 2, and Sonic 3&K especially. Zones like Green Hill, Spring Yard, and Starlight are a fun time and right up there in quality with Sonic 2 and 3. The rest of the levels, though, have a few little nagging issues I'd like to discuss. First, Marble Zone, the second zone (that's not confusing at all). It's an ok zone, but it's plagued with the aforementioned issues. For one, there are hazards that can blindside you, like fireballs, falling spiked platforms, and, worst of all, surprise crushers that you can't see because they're on a platform above you. Thankfully, though, you can pan the camera up, which does make the crushers a non-issue. Overall, Marble Zone is a decent zone, but far from the best one ever made. The fourth zone, Labyrinth Zone, is a real bitch your first time, but after a few playthroughs, especially my most recent one... it's honestly not the worst thing ever. The zone is still full of annoying stage hazards and of course, it's a water level, which usually means bad news for Sonic games. The enemies are also a bit of a pain. However, like I said, I don't really mind this zone that much and consider it more boring than frustrating. Scrap Brain Zone, the sixth and last regular zone, though, is the absolute lowlight of the entire game. I know it's the final zone and it's supposed to be hard, but what reason was there to make it a death march full of badly-placed enemies, hazards, and bottomless pits that are a real bitch to avoid? Also, fuck Act 3. Just fuck it. Thankfully, there is a shortcut that lets you get to the boss a lot quicker, but that doesn't excuse the bad design of this stage. In contrast to all of this, however, the bosses are incredibly easy. Not as easy as those from Donkey Kong Country 1, Spyro the Dragon, or Super Mario 64, mind you, but easy nonetheless. Except the Labyrinth Zone boss and the Final Boss, each one really doesn't require that much effort to take down. They're fine enough fights and are fun to take on, but they could have used a bit more challenge. On the other hand, though, the Final Boss could have had at least one ring to make it a bit more fair, and the Labyrinth Zone boss.... should have not existed at all. Seriously, that fight sucks. It's irrelevant that I did manage to beat it in a single try in one of my recent playthroughs, the fight is still ass. Lastly, the difficulty can be schizophrenic. I'd rank the difficulty of the zones from hardest to easiest as such : Scrap Brain Zone >>> Labyrinth Zone > Marble Zone > Spring Yard Zone > Starlight Zone > Green Hill Zone. Want to know the order of the zones? Green Hill, Marble, Spring Yard, Labyrinth, Starlight, and finally Scrap Brain. That means that the last zone is the hardest, followed by the fourth, then the second, then the third, then fifth, then first. This is even more schizophrenic then Super Mario Bros. 2 USA (the GBA version in particular). None of these flaws stop Sonic the Hedgehog from being a good game, though. However, the thing that makes this my least favorite classic Sonic game so far is its relative lack of consistency. The levels vary in quality fairly often. In contrast, Sonic 2 was a more consistently good game with some bad levels towards the end, and Sonic 3 & Knuckles only had one zone I didn't like next to twelve other amazing ones. But during my several playthroughs of this game, I noticed something. The limited continues? The rarity of extra lives compared to future games? The occasionally cheap design? This game is structured exactly like an arcade game. I think that was intentional - after all, arcades were still huge in the early 1990s, and the Genesis was marketed as having "16-bit arcade graphics" and being a machine that perfectly mimics the arcade experience. The arcade design mentality had also not completely gone away from mascot platformers at the time, despite the fact that Mario moved away from that model of game design with Super Mario Bros. 3 in 1990 and Super Mario World, in the exact same year as Sonic the Hedgehog, 1991. I don't know if this was intentional, or if Sega was simply shackled to this design philosophy because of their solidified arcade pedigree. Whatever the case, I consider this the most arcadey of the Genesis Sonic games, and the fact that an arcade version of the game does exist further adds credence to this. Soundtrack The music in Sonic 1 is definitely one of its stronger aspects. Every track in this game is good to great, with Green Hill Zone, Spring Yard Zone, my personal favorite Starlight Zone, and the Final Zone being highlights. Even the lesser songs, like Labyrinth or Marble Zone, are still pretty good. My only criticism (which kind of is a non-argument, I'll admit) is that the songs can get pretty twangy (mostly Labyrinth Zone), which makes them sound kind of weird. That just leads to my greater opinion on the Genesis soundfront in general, which I prefer the SNES soundfront to. That's not to say all Genesis music is bad, though, and Sonic is definitely a strong example of great Genesis music. I mean, we are comparing FM synthesis to sampled music, so they're not all that comparable anyways. Graphics Sonic the Hedgehog is a pretty nice looking game. For an early-release Genesis title, its graphics are impressive. Every zone has a nice amount of color and the backgrounds have a cool parallax scrolling effect. The spritework is great as well, with nicely-detailed and shaded sprites. While I think the SNES has a slight edge over the Genesis in terms of graphical capabities, but Sonic the Hedgehog is very much on par with this era's offerings and still looks great to this day. Conclusion In conclusion, Sonic the Hedgehog is a pretty good game. Despite some dated design choices like limited continues combined with occasionally bad levels, it still holds up well enough and is fun to play today. I would recommend that you play Sonic 3&K and Sonic 2 before this one, because they're more accessible and better than this first game, but if you really want to start here, I won't stop or blame you because this really is a solid game. If you choose to play this game, you have a few options for doing so. You could buy an original Genesis to play it since they're surprisingly cheap nowadays, at least from my experience. You could alternatively get it on Virtual Console, an emulator, or play the Taxman & Stealth remake on home consoles and mobile, which I've heard fixes many of the game's flaws. In some ways, this game has a similar status to DKC3 : if you liked the other two entires in the series, you'll most likely enjoy this one, but if you didn't, then this game won't do anything to change your mind. However, Sonic 1 is still way better than DKC3 on SNES because it's way more fun, and despite a few levels in this game being worse than one or two in DKC3, there's a far fewer amount of levels I hate. Join me next time when I either review another game, possibly that damn NSMBW review I've been promising for a while now, or maybe another Sonic game. I might even do another movie review (likely Shrek) or a new Fuck this Shit entry I've been putting off for months now. In any event, see you guys next time. Category:Blog posts